The Walls Are Moving
by bradhadair12
Summary: Roxas' heart never felt so far off and out of reach before he started morphing into someone else. 358/2 Days.


The Walls Are Moving

This is my second proper KH fanfic, based after the same game as the first one, and published a day after the first one! I love Roxas introspects, don't you? Again, this is dedicated to Rubi Lawson, and also slightly to Rachael Fulthorpe, who also loves Kingdom hearts. Man, I get really sick of writing the name of that thing over and over and over and over...

I don't own Kingdom hearts, savvy? On with the story!

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Some days Roxas felt like he was morphing into someone else.

He woke up to the sight of blue luminescent lamps and the smell of bacon. He moaned slightly, still half asleep, almost ignoring the voice of a woman calling for him to 'get his butt out of bed and come have breakfast!' His lashes swept across his cheeks in a lazy blink, brushing away the sleep that was sticking his lids together.

He opened his eyes and saw his room, in all its stark black and white glory. It felt like a dream, but so real that he could almost still smell the bacon. Roxas' mouth watered. He'd never eaten bacon before, and nor did he even know what it was – only that it was **good.**

Things only got worse.

There were times when he felt like his hair was sticking up far too much, and he ran his thin fingers through the strands in a desperate attempt to tame the locks. He was too pale; he was too muscular; his shoes weren't big enough. He picked faults at everything, and then caught himself in the act. He berated himself, passing it off as needing more sleep. After all, Axel and Demyx never did anything **but** sleep, and they were always razor sharp.

But those **dreams...** Roxas was finding that he didn't want to sleep.

He noticed that missions were changing for him too. Not necessarily the jobs he undertook, or the people he went with, though. Those superficial details were still the same, as unchanging as the Castle That Never Was and all its inhabitants, including the girl that wouldn't wake up in the room next to his. He would still arrive home sweating and covered in dirt that wouldn't come out of his clothes. No **wonder** they all wore black: the marks didn't show.

The changes were much deeper than that.

It was more to do with himself than anything else. He'd sometimes find himself thinking about things that he wouldn't normally think about, when he was supposed to be concentrating on slicing through the Heartless that attack in droves. That cloud looks like a keyhole! Since when was his ring finger shorter than his index finger?

Thoughts like that could get him killed.

They certainly weren't from him. They didn't have the right... **feel** to them. Roxas' thoughts were crisp and sharp like ice. These thoughts were smooth and rich like chocolate. They sounded from somewhere in the back of his head: a place which Roxas had never touched before. He didn't want to touch it either. Curiosity was an emotion he couldn't feel.

Though sometimes it felt like he **could.**

Axel told him that the 'emotions' that Nobodies seemed to feel is just the memory of what those emotions were like drawn over their faces like a mask. Roxas wasn't sure. He wasn't sure of **anything** anymore.

He wondered if the others felt the same way. Axel seemed to **burst** with emotion. Emotions that would lick at his skin and set it on fire if he got too close. Xion was more relaxed and subtle, her eyes betraying a slight hint of sadness. He hadn't seen those eyes since she fell asleep. He couldn't stop himself from thinking that she would suit red hair more than black whenever he visited her.

Roxas asked far too many questions. He'd been told that day in and day out ever since he found his voice on the seventh day of his employment by the Organization. Axel didn't question Saïx's orders. Xion didn't ask why she could use the Keyblade – she didn't really ask much anymore.

Roxas never stopped asking questions. He wanted to know what the glowing specks in the sky were. He wanted to know where Xaldin kept all his extra spears. He wanted to know why the sky was blue, and the ocean wet. His hunger for knowledge was insatiable. Nobodies didn't have a right to know, but Roxas felt like he didn't care. The boy in red wouldn't care either.

Roxas asked Luxord about his confusion. The older man balked, before answering.

"You seem to have forgotten that we Nobodies were humans once. We once had hearts, but we gambled with them too much, when the darkness was dealt the stronger hand. These mannerisms of yours are what your Somebody used to be like. It's strange that you don't remember him... I suppose not everyone can win the game."

That would explain a lot, yet still left many questions unanswered. He supposed he **could** remember his Somebody – that's what the boy in red had to be – but what about Xion? Did she not **have** a Somebody?! It was a little hard to ask her at that point. He'd get the same silence answer he'd been receiving for weeks.

The boy in red.

He was having visions of him, and more often now than ever before. Sometimes Roxas felt like he would be there when he closed his eyes, his vibrant soul imprinted on the inside of his eyelids. He could imagine that he'd smile at him in a way that Roxas could only imitate, and then he'd be gone as soon as he opened his eyes again.

He felt like he was being followed a lot. He turned around and always found no one there, the place where his heart would be emptier than usual. Some days he would feel like the emptiness of his heart would combine with all the emptiness of the rest of his body – the emptiness in between his organs, and even the empty spaces **inside** his organs – and he'd be hollow on the inside. A true shell. A Dusk. No one wanted to be a Dusk. He thought of telling Axel, but he didn't think he'd understand.

Then there were the physical things. Things he found himself doing without noticing it. When he was annoyed, he crossed his arms and tapped his feet, before he caught himself and shifted back to his normal, stoic stand. When he was relaxed he crossed both arms behind his head, resting on his hands, before he froze and dropped the offending appendages back to his sides. He smiled at the most random things: Genie flying through the sand-swept skies of Agrabah; the wind through his hair in Never Land.

He felt like he'd been there before, which was impossible. He knew how to use the Keyblade without being taught, which was impossible. He knew that the Destiny Islands were out there **somewhere,** if only he could get that image back into his mind before it was swamped by the thoughts of the man with white hair and the greenest eyes Roxas had ever seen since Axel.

And each day he felt less and less like finishing Kingdom Hearts. He would get urges to hop on a ship made of gummi blocks and travel the worlds, instead of dragging his weary body through eroding waves of darkness. Maybe Kingdom hearts was a bad idea, though he didn't know why. There was something **wrong** about Kingdom Hearts. The pale light from the heart-shaped moon hanging in the sky gave him goosebumps, though he didn't know why.

Sometimes he felt a dull aching in his chest, like something was trying to pry his ribs open. He placed one slender hand on his chest, feeling the ghost of a pulse beating beneath the layers of muscle. Nobodies didn't have hearts, so why could he hear his? His heart was supposed to be in the darkness, or in Kingdom Hearts.

Everything was changing and he was powerless to stop it.

Axel's eyes were green, like **his.** Xion's face was thin, like **hers.** Roxas' eyes were too blue. Roxas' eyes were too **empty.** Roxas wasn't Roxas. Roxas was **him. **Roxas felt so unlike himself that his head would hurt and the walls would move before his eyes.

Roxas' heart never felt so far off and out of reach before he started morphing into someone else.


End file.
